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Which brightest shines on Life’s dull stream, 
And cheers our roughest voyage here, 
Adds lustre to Hope’s gilded dream, 
And yields a solace to despair. 
It is a compact, pure, high, holy, 
Felt , not expressed, yet deeply binding; 
It charms the great, consoles the lowly, 
And ’midst our saddest thoughts oft winding, 
Its gentle influences will dispel, 
Dark shadows from the brow of Care, 
And conjure up from Memory’s cell, 
Fair images which linger there. 
It is the covenant of souls, — 
A heaven-inspired bond of feeling, 
Which neither time nor place controls, 
While even absence , all else stealing, 
